


Mass Effect: Manifest Destiny

by beetle



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Backstory, Biotic Shepard, Bouncer Shep, But they're making too much galactic noise to stay that way, Colonist (Mass Effect), Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Humanity is spared, Hurt/Comfort, Kaidan is also a good friend, M/M, Mass Effect Relays Discovery happens two hundred years after the Reaper War, N7 (Mass Effect), Past Kaidan Alenko/Shepard, Post-Reaper War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scott is a Good Friend, Seriously Systems Alliance . . . where are all the Aliens?, Smut, So is Corporal Toombs, So is Shepard's Dog, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Systems Alliance is not your friend, They're almost the only ones who are, Vanguard (Mass Effect), Veterans, War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 05:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12314769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: In a future in which humanity has givenmanifest destinya whole new angle, and spread across the silent galaxy to colonize now-untenanted worlds—and taken their wars and power-plays with them—Commander Jackson “Vanguard” Shepard is an anomaly: a discharged and retired N7 biotic who’snotshilling for the hegemonic Systems Alliance. He scrambles from month to month, from meager pension check to meager pension check, with only his big-hearted mutt Bosco for companionship and purpose.Shep’s nothing to no one—neither hero, nor villain . . . paragon, nor renegade—just another angry, near-destitute veteran of war(s) no one wants to care about or remember in the bright dawn of an “Age of Manifest Destiny” all humanity can enjoy. He’s keeping his head down and himself to himself as best he can. He doesn’t miss or even remember the stars. Enter threedeus ex machinas: a naïve, but disconcertingly gorgeous kid who looks at Shep like he’s his only hope; Shep’s former second-in-command (and former-lover) who can read him like an open book; and Shep’s batshit, former team-member, Corporal Toombs . . . the only other survivor of Akuze besides Shep. And with these three, come all their attendant troubles.





	Mass Effect: Manifest Destiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cavaticarose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cavaticarose/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Futuristic AU. Mentions of PTSD and related mental health issues. Timelines altered (Martian exploration—and thus discovery of mass effect technology—took place approximately two hundred years later than in ME canon . . . and after the most recent Reaping of the space-faring galaxy).
> 
> Also, MANY thanks to [CavaticaRose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cavaticarose) (a badass Mass Effect-maven in their own right), for helping me sort this mess out and figure out what, besides timeline-tweaks, made this Universe so Alternate.  
> ::hugs::

 

 

 

**Prologue: The Age of Manifest Destiny**

  
_In the year 2359, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the nearly four decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time._

 

They called it the greatest discovery in human history.

_They called it_ Mass Effect _. . . ._

_Upon discovering the vast, utter decimation, the purposeful ruin, and the unbroken_ silence _that permeated their galaxy—the haunting, haunted remains of dozens of advanced, space-faring, thoroughly-dead races of galactic antiquity and even of the past millennium—humanity, in its anthropocentric arrogance, began to call this great discovery something else, altogether._

_And time passed. As no mentors, benefactors, or challengers appeared to restrict, regulate, or take this new technology from greedy-young human hands, factions formed and cults arose. The total extinction of the sentient beings of an entire galaxy—a googolplex of individuals . . . death beyond all measure—was forgotten, for good or ill.  
_

 

 _With the advent of biotic ability due to exposure to element zero, capital-H_ Humanity _—despite the evidence of the many older civilizations which now moldered in crumbling ruins with no obvious explanation—began to call this age of accelerating power and knowledge_ The Age of Manifest Destiny _. And, as on Earth, Humanity appeared to be at the top of the_ galactic _food-chain, as well._

 

_But appearances are often deceiving._

**Chapter One: An Old Dog Meets a New Trick**

 

It was five-thirty p.m. and almost time for work. But Jackson Elmer Shepard was still sitting on the left edge of his messy murphy-bed, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gentle twilight illuminating the apartment. Waiting for his head to quit taking one of its frequent tours of the Ninth-damned-Circle and dragging his goddamn stomach along with it.

 

Though he’d been awake and ambulatory since a little after three—after filling his monthly quota of screaming nightmares in one “night”—he hadn’t moved much beyond draining the lizard and overmedicating-as-usual. But even Shep’s always unwise amounts of barely-legal painkillers and ridiculous-proof rum hadn’t done much to improve either headache or mood. Or the agonizing light-sensitivity that’d made keeping his eyes open for longer than a hot minute a miserable slog through Hell.

 

Kaidan used to frequently say that Shep’s continuing headaches, even the worst, post-mission ones, were more likely to be psychosomatic, than a result of damage dealt by Shep’s L3-retrofit.

 

“Is that your polite, Canadian-as-fuck way of saying I’m batshit, Alenko?” Shep had finally asked, the evening after the last hearing regarding the mission on Akuze. Medicated and weary beyond his usual closed-mouth responses to Kaidan’s gentle, armchair diagnostics, Shep had been so worn-down by the hearings and assessments of his skills, his talent, his dedication, and his mental health, that all he'd been good for was watching his life rapidly circle the drain.

 

The FUBAR that’d reduced most of the soldiers under Shep’s command to nothing more than intestinal gurgles in the belly of a giant, acid-horking sandworm hadn’t been the start of the circling. It’d been the fucking climax. The hearings and all that shit had been the falling action. And soon, all Shep’d have left was whatever shape his personal denouement took. Though, if that denouement was _Alenko_ -shaped, that’d be a heaping slice of alright.

 

And upon yet again realizing that that option had almost been taken from him in the most final way, Shep had shuddered. The only reason _Kaidan_ hadn’t wound up one of those intestinal gurgles was because Chakwas, bless her stickler heart, hadn’t cleared him for the mission due to a _sprained-fucking-ankle_.

 

The _what-ifs_ surrounding even just that not-so-tiny twist of fate had kept Shep awake more nights than it hadn’t in the months since.

 

It wouldn’t be long after the Akuze clusterfuck and aftermath that Shep was taken off Ready-status. And, after that, discharged honorably, with a Star of Terra added to all the other medals and awards that didn’t mean shit, and hadn’t for a while.

 

But at _that_ moment . . . Shep’d been in his Spartan quarters at the Citadel (which he hadn’t _officially_ shared with Kaidan, but only because of all the regs and bullshit about fraternization, and domestic partners serving in the same chain of command). He’d been half-unconscious, his imploding skull in Kaidan’s lap while the other man had massaged his neck and temples in a way that wasn’t especially soothing. But Shep had been hesitant to make Kaidan aware of the lacking efficacy of his massages.

 

They hadn’t helped the pain at all, but the thought and consideration—the care and tenderness in Kaidan’s hands had been _everything_. Or almost. They hadn’t made everything _alright_ , those hands . . . but they’d made some things phenomenally _better_. And the rest of it . . . worth struggling through.

 

“Asshole,” Kaidan had chuckled, brushing his careful, kind fingers down Shep’s forehead and his hawkish-prominent nose, before tracing Shep’s thin, grimacing mouth. “You’re at least half-Canuck, yourself.”

 

“Eh. Mom was a mutt. Married a mutt. Gave birth to a mutt. We bounced around the planet, then the galaxy when the rush to colonize got under way. We were citizens of Everywhere and Nowhere. None of us had ever had a long-term squat till fucking Mindoir.” Shep’d winced at the sudden ramping up of his headache. Even when his head was okay—for him—just thinking about his folks and Mindoir made shit worse. _All_ the shit. So, he’d opened his sensitive, throbbing eyes and squinted up into Kaidan’s dark, mersmerizing ones. The smile Shep’d tried on was more genuine than not and he’d reached up to brush callused fingertips along Kaidan’s stubbly jaw. “One _good_ trait the old man passed down to me is, I’ve got a soft-spot for fine-ass Canadians.”

 

Kaidan had laughed, blushing deeply enough that Shep had been able to see it even in the dim lighting and with his wonky vision. In that moment, he’d felt his aching heart more keenly than his aching head. The former ache was larger and far sweeter. It, too, had felt like _everything_.

 

“Is that so, Commander Shepard?” Kaidan had purred, leaning down to kiss Shep’s lips lightly. “Turns out _this_ Canadian’s got a soft-spot for big, sweet _mutts_. Well . . . one big, sweet mutt in particular.”

 

“Hmm . . . and it _is_ such a soft spot. And tight. And warm,” Shep had mused, crooking his dirtiest smirk at Kaidan, who’d rolled his eyes as he sat back up.

 

“You’re the absolute worst, Jack. I’ve never met anyone as bad at compliments and flirting as you.”

 

Shep’s smirk had turned into a grin that only _Kaidan_ ever got to see, anymore. And Joker, when the other man said something especially cutting and funny. “Hmm. I _am_ the worst. The rock-bottom _worst_. It’s a good thing for me you love me so much.”

 

Kaidan’s dark brows had lifted sardonically, but that hadn’t belied the everything-truth in his eyes. “Yes. Lucky you.”

 

“Mm-hmm . . . lucky, lucky me.” And Shep’s grin had relaxed into a smile as he’d closed his exhausted eyes and let Kaidan take up where he’d left off with his ineffective, perfect massage and occasional disapproving hums when he encountered recurring tension knots.

 

At some point, Shep had lost consciousness just because it was less painful than being awake through his skull collapsing and his stomach rebelling around the nothing that was in it.

 

When he’d finally awoken for keeps a day and a half later, it’d been to the mellow, background zig-zagging of the weird, experimental jazz Kaidan preferred, as well as the scents of breakfast as only a meat-obsessed Canadian could interpret it.

 

Shep, if left to his own devices, tended to live on coffee, MREs, and hard liquor. And the occasional pizza.

 

Smiling to himself, despite the soreness of _all of him_ and the typical enervation that came with that, Shep’d laid there for a long time, feeling safe and . . . _at home_ in a way he never had.

 

That’d been the first time he’d realized that _Kaidan_ was his home. And that as long as he had the other man nearby, he was _always home_.

 

 _I’m gonna marry him as soon as we muster-out_ , he’d told himself, for once not scared of a life beyond the military. And there had been no doubt that Shep'd been close to receiving his golden parachute. He had been, in his persisting mental—and increasingly _physical_ , too—state, no use to the Systems Alliance. And the Alliance was nothing, if not mercenary and efficient.

 

Shep had known his military-days were numbered, but he had _also known_ that at the end of them, he had the possibility of _this, always_ , with the only man he’d ever love.

 

 _I’m gonna_ marry him _and we’ll get a place in BC, near his family. Maybe get a dog, or even a kid. Or maybe_ both _. Anything’s possible. And maybe it won’t be perfect, but it’ll be_ damned good _. Better than_ I _deserve, though not nearly as good as he does. . . ._

 

Blinking, Shep was yanked back to the present when his clock-radio began spitting out the strains of the _Weekday Wild-Riffs-_ hour on his least-hated classic rock station, at exactly six-oh-one pee-em. Which meant twenty-nine minutes until his shift.

 

Sighing, he didn’t even start at the sudden sound of the DJ’s asinine patter. Nor did he start when Bosco’s cold, wet nose nudged his knee, accompanied by a gentle, commiserative whine.

 

Smiling, Shep ruffled his best friend’s huge, floppy ears. Bosco panted happily and let out a soft, deep _woof!_

 

 _A big, sweet mutt for a big, sweet mutt_ , Kaidan had said when gifting Shep with the ginormous puppy that had apparently thought she was one-quarter the size and one-third the weight she'd _actually_ been. Shep had smirked at Kaidan through the beginnings of a headache that hadn’t stopped him from participating in an enthusiastic night of cathartic/stress-relief sex with his ex, while the tuckered-out, unnamed pup-zilla had slept in the midst of the chaos she’d created. And though, on Kaidan’s part, the sex was probably more pity, than catharsis or stress- _relief_ , he’d been just as enthusiastic during, and kind enough after to let Shep spend the night.

 

In the morning, Shep’d helped Kaidan straighten the worst of the havoc the pup-zilla had wreaked in the cozy living room that’d been _theirs_ for a short while, not so long before.

 

And though the sex hadn’t happened again in the thirteen months since the gifting of the calamitous puppy, their tentative, post-breakup friendship had actually grown steadily easier and deeper. Less like walking on eggshells and watching what they said to each other, and more like the bromance that’d come before they’d started sneaking around between missions and eventually sharing quarters.

 

Bosco woofed again, questioning and hopeful. Shep gritted his teeth in what no one would consider a smile and gave her fur a final ruffle.

 

“Sure thing, Miz Boscarello. You’re the boss. Just lemme get some clothes on, then we’ll go for walkies real quick and put out your din-din. Then . . . work.” Standing slowly, because of lingering muscle-ache and disorientation, Shep finally cracked his lids again. His brain was less than pleased and told him so in no uncertain terms. He sighed once again and squinted down at his drippy-tongued bestie, dredging up a smile only _she_ saw, anymore. “Fuck, maybe I’ll just be _massively_ late for once, instead of _punitively booted out of shift rotation for the next week_ -late.”

 

Bosco woofed in optimistic agreement, giving him the big, loving, dark puppy-eyes that never grew less innocent and admiring, only more. Shep snorted and gave her furry head another ruffle that made her whine again in pure, doggy ecstasy. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fulla shit an’ I know it. C’mon, sweet girl, let’s get ready for the day.”

 

#

 

His rotations as the regular bouncer at _The Galactic Spiral_ , one of Vancouver’s trendier clubs, were generally assured, despite his random latenesses. Mostly because the owner, son of a dead ex-merc Shep had worked with frequently, was a decent kid with a kind heart.

 

Also, Bain Massani made no secret that he had _huge_ hero-worship for his father, and his father’s old comrades and contemporaries.

 

The manager of the _Spiral_ , Candace Caine—her real name, but given by possibly head-injured parents . . . and Heaven help _anyone_ who called her _Candy_ —was scary as fuck, but was also ex-Alliance, herself. Mustered-out as a sergeant and seemed to understand that Shep’s latenesses were never due to not taking his job seriously, under-the-table though it was. His nightmares sat, he knew, blatantly on his shoulders and in his eyes like tormented ghosts. Candace’s nightmares were the same, going by the slight, bowed hunch of her coat-hanger-shoulders and the shadows behind her faded-denim blue eyes in their seas of irritated red.

 

She was always respectful to him, though, if gruff and occasionally sarcastic, and he was always the same. She did him the favor of not noticing his more-often-than-not tear-swollen eyelids or the dark circles around his habitual thousand yard-stare. He showed her the same courtesy.

 

Plus, he always stayed later to make up his missed time, even if all that was left to do was clean-up and restock.

 

So, latenesses aside, his coworkers and superiors respected him, even if they didn’t quite warm up to him, by and large.

 

And anyway, Shepard wasn’t in it—any of it—to make friends. He _had_ friends, already. Two of them— _three_ , if one counted Toombs. And though Shepard _did_ , he understood that the man was too erratic to rely on in the same ways he relied on Kaidan and Boscarello.

 

Tonight, having only been about seventeen minutes late for shift, Candace let him help with the restocking afterward. Easy manual labor, which he got done almost singlehandedly while the bartenders on duty that night, Ada and Asa—young, gorgeous twins, probably barely old enough to drink themselves—ogled him. Parted, glossy lips and considering, admiring eyes greeted Shep every time he finished shuttling another box or keg from the storeroom.

 

After that was done, Candace paid him and, with a smirk, rolled her pale eyes toward the drooling bartenders. Shep snorted, took his cash, and made his way to the door with a jaunty, sardonic salute for his manager and everyone else he passed.

 

Upon stepping out into the chilly night, he hunched his shoulders a little, rolling them slowly. His headache was nearly gone, with a capriciousness that for once blew Shep some good. Instead of three days, a little over twelve hours spent making Shep’s life even more miserable, before getting the fuck out of Dodge until next time, was a dream come true.

 

Most of the tension in his neck, shoulders, and back had released over the course of a night of sporadic physical labor that’d included breaking up a few drunken brawls. Now, he felt loose and limber, but coiled, too. Ready for anything. Warm, despite a cruel winter lingering halfway through a timid spring. Shep’s black jacket and grey t-shirt were doing as little as ever to block the chill, and his poor, denim-clad ass was _extra_ -cold without the near-tangible, hot-eyed gazes of the booze-slinging wonder-twins to keep it warm.

 

Snorting again, he turned left, toward his neighborhood in Downtown Eastside. It was almost four a.m., but his favorite local dive was—for him and some other diehard regulars—still open until sun-up.

 

Stalking sedately along, fearless and calm, Shep made his unhurried, but efficient way to The Deetes, and to _The Flogging Molly_ , where everyone probably knew his name, but also probably didn’t give a shit.

 

Aside from keeping a few decent Martian IPAs and pale ales in stock, that was really _all_ Shep asked of _any_ venue he wasn’t being paid to bounce.

 

#

 

“Excuse me,” a soft, hesitant young voice said at Shep’s left elbow.

 

It was quarter to six in the morning, according to Shep’s omnitool. The same omnitool on which he was playing a rousing game of _who gives a fuck, at least it’s got explosions and a peppy little soundtrack_ , while sipping his lukewarm Tharsis Dagger Blonde.

 

At the sound of this unfamiliar voice, intriguing though the shivers it caused were, Shep didn’t so much as look away from shooting at the purple blobs floating above his omnitool’s holo-projector and hurtling toward the orange sights that represented his unspecified laser rifle. He was slowly being overwhelmed by the blobs, but the music was still trippy-chirpy and optimistic. He liked that for some reason. There was probably an analogy in there about life, the universe, and everything, had he the interest in teasing it out.

 

To say that he didn’t was galaxies of understatement.

 

“Um. Sir?”

 

Shep grunted, signaling his divided attention, knowing that the division would probably cost him this struggle against the purple blobs, but resigned to losing the battle, since he’d probably lose the war, anyway.

 

“Uh . . . you, um . . .you’re Commander Shepard, right? _The_ Commander Jackson Shepard?”

 

Shep didn’t freeze. Shep didn’t roll his eyes. Hell, Shep didn’t even _blink_. Not with the way the purple blobs were swarming.

 

“Nawp. _The_ Commander Jackson Shepard doesn’t exist anymore, kid. Except as convenient, Alliance-branded legend and propaganda.” Shep frowned as he annihilated several of the blobs, but another dozen appeared. He was starting to think that, like life, this game was rigged bullshit. “I’m just Shep. What can I do ya for?”

 

Silence for the better part of a minute. A minute during which Shep game-overed in a spectacular hail of glitchy pyrotechnics.

 

Also like life, the purple blobs had won. If only because their numbers were overwhelming and quickly replenished.

 

Sighing yet again, Shep looked up at the mirror over the bar. He met his warped reflection’s haunted, shifting-hazel gaze above the top-shelf booze, and scowled. Then he looked to his right, toward where Marvin Hepple, the owner and sometime bartender of this dive, was bullshitting with Dan Kagawa, yet another retired Alliance-rat, like so many of _Molly’s_ patrons.

 

Beyond them, the rest of the bar was empty, but for Jana Drucker, a vet from back before the Alliance was more than just the bloated governments of Earth, Luna, and Mars making noises about getting the exo-colonies under their benevolent thumbs.

 

Drucker had mustered out with the rank of Colonel and retired to Earth, despite being Mars-born. She probably had at least as many medals and awards as Shep, and now . . . she spent most of her life, what passed for it and what was left of it, getting blitzed at _Molly’s_.

 

Shep could hear her drunken, congested snores from all the way across the bar, as they rebounded off the table on which she’d face-planted. Even in the bar’s dim light, her shiny-silvery afro looked like a halo. Like a symbol of what the Jana Druckers of the galaxy had once thought they were signing away their lives to become when they hitched their wagons to the nascent Systems Alliance’s star.

 

With a bitter smirk, Shep shook his head and turned the other way . . . toward the exit and the edgy presence at his left elbow.

 

For most of a minute, he could only blink as he stared into dark, _dark_ eyes that were round and kind, anxious and innocent. They reminded him of _Bosco’s_ eyes in some undefinable way. Smarter, yes, but soulful and hopeful and unshielded.

 

“Uh . . . okay, Comm—uh, _Mr_., uh . . . _Shep_ ,” the kid finally settled on, biting his full, pouty lower lip nervously with teeth so perfect they could sell toothpaste to anteaters on their last dime. Those eyes, though—the color of absolute vacuum and set under thick, expressive brows which were just as dark—were intent and brimming with more emotions than Shep, people non-reader that he was, could identify. The main one was hope, however, and it made eyes that were already more compelling than any Shep had ever seen infinitely more so.

 

They were set in a square, fine-featured face the color of burnished copper . . . of the ancient _pennies_ one still found floating around North America from back before— _way_ before—the implementation of the world, then the galactic currency. That dusky-rose, pouty-plush mouth had a small, struggling mustache above it, probably because without it, this kid would look like he was twelve.

 

Framing the kid’s boyish-bordering-on-pretty face were skinny, shoulder-length locs the same shade as the brows and ‘stache.

 

“I, uh . . . I’m . . . you don’t know me, sir. Probably. Obviously,” the kid said, shrugging his slim, but strong-looking shoulders in what was more of a nervous twitch, than anything. He was likely two or three inches shorter than Shep’s six-one-and-a-half, but seemed sturdy, for all that he was compact. Though, it was anyone’s guess, what with the kid wearing a minimum of three baggy layers: a threadbare grey Henley under an unbuttoned, oversized, blue plaid shirt and an unzipped, slightly-too-short, navy-blue hoodie. Saggy cargo pants the color of dried-out olives and decrepit orange running shoes completed this skid-row chic.

 

Obscured by the too-long plaid sleeves, the kid’s fingers fidgeted and wiggled, with the tapered tips barely showing.

 

Meeting those eyes again, Shep crooked a slow, appreciative smirk—which had sometimes passed for charming in certain undiscriminating circles . . . basically Kaidan and the one-night stands that’d come before and after him—at the kid.

 

“Obviously. Pretty sure I’d remember _you_ if I’d met you before,” Shep rumbled, holding the kid’s steady, but increasingly urgent gaze. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t _like_ to know you, though. Pull up a stool and I’ll buy ya a beer. Uh . . . you _are_ eighteen, right?”

 

The kid frowned, then blinked, then shook his head tersely. “Actually, I’m twenty,” he said dismissively, and Shep’s falling smirk was shored up into a more genuine grin.

 

“Nice. No offense, but . . . just because you’re _worth_ doin’ time for, doesn’t mean I’m lookin’ to build a rap-sheet.”

 

Another blink and the furrowing of those waggly-emotive brows. “ _What_?”

 

 _Shep’s_ brows lifted and he gave the kid a pointed, bordering on leering once-over, because some guys just needed to be hit over the head like that. And if _Shep_ thought someone was oblivious to flirting—especially Shep’s ham-fisted iteration of it—they _had_ to be terminal.

 

The kid blinked again, then swallowed, looking down. His eyes fastened then remained glued to Shep’s chest for almost half a minute, narrowing and widening several times over, as if the stretchy, unbranded t-shirt—or Shep’s brawny, Alliance-conditioning—had confounded him.

 

“Heyya, hot-shot . . . still with me? Beer, right?” Shep asked when the kid’s eyes drifted back up to his face, still in their **WIDE** setting. He bit his lip again and looked like a deer caught in something’s headlights, before shaking his head morosely.

 

“I . . . don’t drink. Nothing good would come of it, if I did,” he said earnestly. _So_ earnestly, Shep started to laugh and had to cut himself off when he realized the kid was _serious_.

 

“Uh . . . right. Alright, then . . . how about a . . . Coke Ultimate?” Damned if Shep—from the awesome height of his thirty-three and a half years—knew what else kids these days drank when they _weren’t_ swilling overpriced, designer booze to shitty house-music.

 

Another dismissive head-shake and the kid took a breath and stepped closer. Shep caught a whiff of him, like the ocean, fabric softener, and sunshine. “Look, like I said, you _probably_ don’t know me, sir. I mean, Gene maybe doesn’t _talk_ about _me_ to you, but even if he _does_ , well, it’s _Gene_ , so . . . anyway. Lemme start over? Yeah.” The kid nodded as if glad they’d come to a mutual decision on that. His dark, dove-like eyes held Shep’s once more, terrible in their hope and innocence. In their _expectations_. “Commander Shepard, my name is Scott Ryder, and I’m here because you and I have a friend in common. Gene—um, _Corporal Eugene Toombs_. He’s my roommate and basically the only friend I have anymore, and . . . he’s been missing for almost two weeks, sir. I . . . I need your help to find him.”

 

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit and feedback are so very welcome and appreciated. Thanks!
> 
> [beetle on the Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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